Carta de Cuba, la escritura de la libertad

 

 

 

July 6, 2005

 

168,000  IN SANTIAGO WITHOUT WATER  

            Santiago de Cuba – More than 120 local communities in this province are being supplied with water from pipes or water trucks, in spite of the frequent June showers, as acknowledged by the local press, but this is not sufficient in order to replenish the subsurface water deposits in this western region. It is estimated that some 168 thousand people are not receiving water directly from the aqueduct, but through these mobile tanks that, once a week, distribute the water, with the consequent disgust by the population. The popular power in this city reports that more than 3 thousand hectares planted with roots and vegetables were lost, while some 53 thousand cattle animals are in risk of dying, due to the lack of food and water. In the towns of Boniato, Siboney and El Caney, which are fruit producing areas, the crops are endangered and authorities do not have any immediate response., indicated a note from the local newspaper Sierra Maestra. A communist party official pointed out that ¨even there is an abundance of rains, the problem is how to collect that water, how to store it at the destroyed dams and how to prevent its loss when it is being pumped through pipes full of holes¨, expressed Rosario Gómez, a communist party official.  About 40 per cent of the water pumped from the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and the Gilbert dams, which are the ones servicing Santiago is lost.

 OPPOSITIONISTS THREATENED  

            Holguín – Guillermo Llanos Ricardo, Juan Oriol Verdecia Evora, Santos Alberto Escalona Blanco, Rafael Antonio Dorado Domínguez, members of the Cuban Foundation of Human Rights, and Daniel Mesa Castillo, from the Cuban Liberal Movement, were summoned, this July 21st, to the National Police Headquarters at the Municipality of Banes , in the province of Holguín .  In the police station, they were interrogated and threatened with prison sentences as ¨counterrevolutionaries¨, if they maintained their oppositionist militancy. Also, on past June 18th, the independent journalist Osmel Sánchez López was warned at the police station of the town of Venezuela , in Ciego de Avila province, that his ¨independent journalist¨ activity will be sanctioned, by the local public prosecutor office, with four years in jail.

NO ELECTRICITY  

            Ciego de Avila – Neighbors from town 15 1/2 vigorously protested for the constant power failures they are enduring. The independent press communicated that Yudalmis Pérez, resident of building No.13, was threatened with a mass demonstration against her, if she kept shouting in the streets, ¨We want light, down with Fidel!¨, something which was supported by the rest of the neighbors. A communist party militant named Gualberto González, who lives in the building, was also protesting against the power failures and was severely sanctioned as a result. ¨They took away my party I.D. card, but I don’t care, it’s an abuse that we are not getting any electricity, while the hotels have all they need for the tourists¨, commented to Carta de Cuba the sanctioned militant..

PEASANTS PROTEST  

            Banes – Nearly 30 stalls selling agricultural products from independent peasants paralyzed their sales this June 25th, in Banes, in the province of Holguín , as a protest for a 15% raise in taxes. Normally, the farmers have to travel several miles with their products –using their own or some hired transportation- to later deliver them to a government warehouse where their wares are weighed and they have to pay heavy taxes, even if the crops are not sold. The opponent Guillermo Llanos Ricardo explained to Carta de Cuba that the government opened a state market, which up to now only offers beans and pumpkins, while in the farmer markets the population can buy beans, rice, greens, pork meat, vegetables and fruits.  

CHURCH RAIDED AND CLOSED

            Guantánamo – A Baptist Church , built by private effort and located at El Recreo farm, in the municipality of Baracoa , province of Guantánamo , was recently intervened by combined forces of the police and the local government council. According to Juan Carlos González Leiva, president of the Cuban Foundation of Human Rights, the repressors were carrying heavy weapons when they arrived the place, and took away all the church tables and chairs, which is attended by hundreds of Baracoa neighbors. Such action was rejected by people who were already present in the place, who unanimously protested in defense of the faithful. The authorities indicated that the religious installation will be turned into a school.  

JAILED JOURNALIST IS SERIOUSLY ILL

            Havana – The journalist and prisoner of conscience Ricardo González Alfonso will be submitted to a second surgical intervention, since he is having a very serious infection, six months after he had a gall bladder operation at the National Hospital for Inmates, according to his wife, Alida Viso. The 55-year old González Alfonso is president of the Journalist Society ¨Manuel Márquez Sterling¨, as well as a correspondent for Reporters without Borders  he has founded and directed the De Cuba magazine and the Jorge Mañach independent library . On January 13th, they extirpated his gall bladder. As a result of the prevailing atrocious sanitary conditions, he developed a serious infection, for which he will soon be submitted to a second, very risky operation. González Alfonso has been interned, since December 7th, at the same National Hospital for Inmates, and he is one of the 75 dissidents that the Cuban government imprisoned, after the repressive action of March 2003, for pretending to exercise their rights to free expression and reading without censorship.  

OPPOSITION LEADERS AGAINST CHANGES IN THE AMERICAN EMBARGO  

            Havana -  In a letter addressed to the Cuban-American congressmen, the oppositionist leaders Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello, Félix Bonne Carcassés and René Gómez Manzano indicated that the coalition they direct does not approve the adoption, by the United States, of unilateral measures directed to the total or partial lifting of the existing embargo, since, according to them, this could be interpreted by the Cuban communist regime (which has given sufficient evidence of its immobile, repressive and antidemocratic vocation) as a policy of appeasement. The letter was sent as a result of the proposal by Representative Charles Rangel and others, to soften the actual commercial embargo of the United States to Cuba .  The dissidents indicated that, even when they would respect any decision that the American Congress may take on the matter, they would like to state that proposals like Rangel’s don’t carry the support of the majority of whom, inside Cuba , are opposing to the existing system and are peacefully fighting to change it.

Arriba (up)
July 6, 2005
Discurso Cason 4 de julio
Cason's 4th of July Speech